


Close Your Eyes

by glittergrenade



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Family, Other, dream - Freeform, just exploring a lil idea I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittergrenade/pseuds/glittergrenade
Summary: The day that Melody Pond was born, the Doctor committed a lie by omission. Oddly enough, those are the lies that can tend to haunt you the most.





	Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Because I've thought about this for a long while. Also, please excuse any gendered pronoun weirdness because I am definitely gonna had messed up somewhere with all these flashbacks. Also, please excuse the technobabble line. I ain't great at it, hahaha.

Water was running in the meadow. Flowers littered the grass, bathed in the warm red glow of the twin suns. The Doctor breathed deeply, and shut her eyes, falling gracefully to her knees. She knew only one thing that could make this place better. _Curls that smell like danger and meringue._ One person. _Lipstick so sharp it could cut steel._

"Doctor."

She stiffened. That voice didn't belong to the person she was thinking of, but it was an extraordinary voice all the same. That obstinate Scottish accent, and that obstinate tone to go along with it…

"Doctor, turn around, I'm not a weeping angel. (In which case it would be helpful to turn around anyway.)"

Weeping angels, yes. The creatures that had stolen this voice away from her. She whirled around to look at her face. And there she was. The ginger goddess of short skirts. Amy Pond.

"Amelia…" the Doctor's voice went through practical convulsions in a way it was unused to, as the Time Lady blinked at her for a moment. Amy was definitely standing there, a mere meter away. How…? It didn't matter how, she told himself. Somehow, someway, she had found her way back to him… or her, now. She would probably have to take her back to Leadworth — Amy might not be interested in joining the TARDIS crew if the Doctor was no longer eye candy to her — but at least this was one sin lifted from her long conscience — where was Rory, anyway?

But then a new thought stopped her from sprinting towards Amy for a hug she'd never thought possible.

"How do you recognize me?" She looked down at himself, her longer jacket, and her admittedly smaller hands. She still wore suspenders, but she had ingenuity to know there was no way _that_ could be enough. "The real Amy only knew my eleventh incarnation. She was a vital part of it, helped make me who I was."

"Really?" She raised a sarcastic eyebrow in a way that made the Doctor's heart ache with old times. "You're standing here in a Gallifreyan paradise, and _that's_ what tips you off."

"I brought Gallifrey back," the Doctor's voice was low, quiet. "What is this, then? A cortexual mirage? A perception filter? A gradation mirror? Hallucinogenic dust? A—" she paused in mid word, breathing deeply into the air— " _huh_. A dream, isn't it. I'm asleep in my bed, dreaming." An unexpected wave of disappointment coursed through her as the realization occurred. Was it because it was a boring explanation, or… was she really still hung up? Amy had written that they were happy, weren't they? In New York?

Amy smiled sadly, as if to acknowledge the guess as correct. "That doesn't mean this isn't also real."

"Very cryptic!" Excitement was displayed to mask the Doctor's distress. As per normal. "My theory is that it kind of does, but agree to disagree." She pulled a lighthearted shrug, cracking her shoulders. "Gallifrey. Would you like me to show you around?"

"We could do that," Amy agreed friendlily. "Or, you know, you could explain to me why you never told me about River Song."

There was a beat.

"What?" _That_ had came out of nowhere. The Doctor stared at her, trying to work out what she meant, then shook her head vigorously. "Don't be silly, remember? You found out everything along with me!"

"Did I?" Amy glanced at the sky. "Because I could swear that after the Battle of Demons Run you told me 'your daughter is River Song, so that means she's just _fiiiine_!' Not 'your daughter is River Song, so that means she died in a library the literal day I met her.'"

"Oh, come on," the Doctor tossed both hands into the air, almost pissed off by the unfairness that seemed piled upon her. It was irritating how aware she was that they were shaking. "I'm sorry, Pond, but I cared about you. And if that's what I'm supposed to tell a grieving mother, than I admit it: my social skills are lacking." Her tone came out harsh, reminiscent almost of her previous incarnation. Perhaps it was guilt which made her defensive. For all her years of life she honestly didn't know what the correct play there was, technically speaking. Everybody died at some point; the Doctor had been to the end of the universe and seen it all. But when she had been there personally, when the words _goodbye sweetie_ were the saddest in existence, when the exact date haunted her on their every romantic adventure, when Darillium was a place she'd dreaded even more than Trenzalore, didn't Amy deserve to know as well?

"That's exactly it though, she's my daughter," Amy stressed, and her tone grew darkly serious, possibly even angry. "And you never. Once. Told. Me. That. She. Was. Dead."

"I'm a time traveller, we're all dead," the Doctor pointed out, a dark shadow in her voice as well. So many had died. Adric. Clara. Even Amy had died, in a way. The real Amy, the one who she wished she could hold right now in her arms and tell how sorry she was for ruining her entire life from start to finish. Obviously this wasn't making out to be half so pleasant a dream as it'd originally looked. But since it _was_ a dream, didn't that mean this was the Doctor only tormenting herself? Maybe that was the general cost of 'collecting' and then _loosing_ so many humans across adventures. It was only fair that she carry their weight across her soul. That meant River's death had been on her too, then, wasn't it? Death was what came to everyone who strayed too close to the Doctor.

"Fine. It's your dream, your call." Amy turned away, as if directly to prove this point. Every muscle and instinct urged the Doctor to stop her. But instead, the Doctor _stopped_. Her fists loosened, as she only realized now they had been clenched.

She hadn’t realized how much this still effected her. She has sulked on a cloud and moved onto the next thing, but she'd never finished mourning.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quickly, almost stepping ahead of herself. Amy looked again over her shoulder, as if expectant, and the pressed ginger locks cascaded like a waterfall of blood down her back. The weight of her loss gripped the Doctor's soul, and it was all she could to not to fall apart. Her voice remained purposed and earnest for Amy. “You’re right. I should have told you. I was an idiot. I took it upon myself to protect you, but obviously I was never able to do that." Amy has only ever waited for the Doctor, and the Doctor had only ever let her down. Amy _had_ deserved to know, and the Doctor must have known that all along. This was her dream.

“Thank you.” Amy smiled, yet their was an overwhelming sadness to it that left her open to the void of memory. “Now… what are you going to do about it?”

The Doctor's gaze drooped, swimming with self-loathing and remorse, as she struggled with what this all meant. When her lids once again lifted, she was awake, feeling more tired than ever. She thought she could hear the distant voices of Yaz and Graham and Ryan, or maybe it was her imagination: a memory. Just like Amy's sad, disappointed eyes that whispered of promise and betrayal and existed forever in the back of her corneas, that still even now believed in the Doctor.


End file.
